Rasta Grabbed With Human Head

The fishing community of Tema Newtown was on March 29, 2005 seized with horror and curiosity when residents woke up to hear that a herbalist of the town and a native of the Land of Snakes, Papa Efo a.k.a. Rasta, had been caught with a human head.

To satisfy their curiosity, hundreds of residents thronged the local Police Station where the herbalist was being held, to be sure that what was being gossiped about the 'human head' was correct.

At the time of filing this story, Rasta had been arraigned before a Tema Circuit Court, which remanded him in custody to enable the Police conduct further investigations into the case. On the prowl, P&P gathered that a few months ago, a teacher, Bright Tetteh sent his wedded wife, Millicent who was unable to give birth, to Rasta to cure her of her bareness.

During the course of the treatment, the teacher got wind that the herbalist was having extra-marital affair with her. He subsequently confronted his wife who, it was alleged, denied. Still suspicious of the relationship between his wife and Rasta, Bright confronted the herbalist, but he did not take kindly to the allegation, allegedly rushed in for a knife and threatened to stab the teacher to death for accusing him wrongly.

However, owing to the timely intervention of neighbours, Rasta was over-powered and the knife collected from him, after which he was reported to the Police leading to his arrest. While Rasta was being kept in Police custody, it came to light that he was keeping some apparitious juju items including a human head in his room. Based upon this information, the Police escorted him to his house where various strange fetish items, including the alleged human head which was hidden in a paint container, were retrieved and sent to the Police Station.

Quizzed on how he came by the decomposing human head, Rasta reportedly told the investigating officer that he found it at the bank of a river in his home country, Benin and decided to bring it to Ghana to be used for ritual healing.